Rastogi, the lone Indian contender in ATP Challenger

India

-Staff

Written by: Staff

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Published: Friday, April 21, 2006, 11:39 [IST]

Chikmagalur, Apr 20 (UNI) Indian teenager Karan Rastogi created a major upset by showing the door to fourth seed Lukasz Kuboi of Poland 6-4, 6-1 to storm into the quarterfinals even as seventh seed Indian Rohan Bopanna was defeated in the 25,000 dollar ATP Challenger championship here today.

Top seed Hyung Taik Lee of Korea and eighth seed Go Soeda of Japan entered the last eight stage winning their respective matches.

Rastogi, thus, became the lone Indian to remain in contention in the championship as four wild card entrants -- Navdeep Singh, Kiran Nandkumar, Mustaf a Ghouse and Vishal Uppal -- and Davis Cupper Prakash Amritraj are already out of the contest and Bopanna was given packing orders by Toshihide Matsui of Japan in the second round today.

After the two players were tied with an identical score in the first set, Rastogi, through his superb ground shots and back hand shots, did not give any room for his opponent and won the first set 6-4 in 45 minutes, despite committing two double faults.

''My game plan was to bring him to the net, which he (Kubot) did not like and I had depth in my stroke and succeeded. More than anything else, I was petty confident of winning before going into the match and I won,'' the upcoming Indian star told newspersons after the match.

The second set saw Kubot, in a sort of depression, failing to receive the service properly, committing many mistakes and allowing Rastogi to win the set with a five point margin (6-1). While Rastogi served seven aces in the match, Kubot could manage only three.

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